Externalizing Tacit Knowledge in Independent Documentary Film Production via Pattern Language

Recently, Taiwan locally made documentary has been received high regards at international movie festivals and by domestic reviewers. The independent documentary producers in Taiwan are different from the commercial documentary producers in other countries. Since these producers in Taiwan don’t have enough funds to have a big production team, they have to possess whole knowledge in documentary production. The knowledge is hidden in the producers’ mind which is difficult to express, share, and disseminate. It will be helpful for the dissemination and application of the knowledge, if we can extract the valued tacit knowledge and express it systematically. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the types and characteristics of tacit knowledge from 12 independent documentary producers through the in-depth interview based on the process of the documentary production in Taiwan. An “IF-THEN-BECAUSE” framework of coding was used to identify the tacit knowledge, and twenty types of tacit knowledge were identified by the study. This study uses the concepts of pattern languages to express the tacit knowledge through “material”, “viewpoint” , “production”, “post-production” and “distribution and miscellaneous” classified from the literature, and integrate with the coding framework of “IF-THEN-BECAUSE” to display the tacit knowledge and to form the pattern language of independent documentary production. The study finds out that to utilize “IF-THEN-BECAUSE” as a coding framework and expression the outcome of knowledge extraction helps interviewer to identify tacit knowledge context of interviewee how they using the knowledge. This process is also good for tacit knowledge extraction. The outcome of tacit knowledge extraction can systematically display the whole knowledge structure and context of documentary film-producing process. It is helpful for readers to have a comprehensive tacit knowledge that enables novice take advantages of skills quickly. The extracted tacit knowledge from the study provides valuable reference for those who are interested in documentary film-producing. The ways of systematic expression of the tacit knowledge of the study provides concrete domain of knowledge management and a base for further studies.